Hospitals and other healthcare delivery settings employ different medical devices in treating patients. These medical devices include patient monitoring equipment for acquiring patient medical parameter data, breathing support equipment, anesthesiology equipment and fluid intra-venous (IV) infusion pumps, for example. Such medical devices are usually located at a patient bedside or nursing station in a hospital ward or in an intensive care, surgical or other location. Further, the medical devices may be connected by a wired or wireless connection to a network such as the Internet, a LAN, a WAN or an intra-net for acquiring patient parameter data and monitoring and controlling the devices. Patient medical parameter data acquired from such devices may include vital signs, ventilator information, infusion pump data associated with fluid delivery and other data.
Known infusion pumps feed information to a recipient data manager that stores raw infusion pump data in a file (e.g., in a flat file format) that is continually updated. The data that is arriving from the infusion pumps is used by medication administration systems to assist in monitoring and managing patient care. However, while this information may be formatted and sent to these systems on an individual basis, existing pump and medication administration systems fail to support the management of the operation of multiple pumps operating concurrently within a healthcare enterprise. A system according to invention principles addresses these limitations and derivative problems.